


Renewal

by Vinvalen



Category: The Lord of the Rings - J. R. R. Tolkien, The Silmarillion and other histories of Middle-Earth - J. R. R. Tolkien
Genre: Dark Prince 'verse, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-28
Updated: 2015-03-28
Packaged: 2018-03-20 02:29:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,087
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3633327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Vinvalen/pseuds/Vinvalen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Set long after Dark God, Vanimórë and Elgalad renew their vows to one another.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Renewal

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Spiced_Wine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiced_Wine/gifts).
  * Inspired by [Dark God](https://archiveofourown.org/works/84857) by [Spiced_Wine](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spiced_Wine/pseuds/Spiced_Wine). 



Renewal.

Torches drove away all shadow from the sacred space of the clearing they ringed about. The area defined a ritual rooted in the lost mists of time; a custom wherein warriors of Sud Sicanna tracked their chosen mates through the city and into the desert beyond; proving their claim through the ancient rites of the hunt and the Dance of Vows that followed. The pair who would wed here tonight had made the Bonding their own; blending within the rite the traditional pursuit of an elven warrior of the forest as he sought his mate in the dizzying heights of the canopy, doing so while bereft of sight and depending wholly upon the strength of the bond they had forged. It was a ritual performed only between males; with carefully chosen witnesses who would understand the fullness of its meaning.

The sacred center was bare save for a circle of stones defining the Space of Fire; piled high with sandalwood brought from afar; waiting to be lit. The forested glade melded with a memory of deserts painted with strange shadows beneath a low-hanging moon and ancient secrets beyond the edge of sight.

Chosen witnesses occupied the perimeter, sitting in silence. Beyond the circle, a small space had been left open; an entrance for the participants. Somewhere in the darkness, a drum began a slow cadence, and the flickering of a single torch became visible through the trees as one of the pair who would occupy the circle approached.

Elgalad paused for a moment before stepping forward once more, drawn by some unspoken signal, his pace slow, measured. Pride and anticipation was reflected within every supple movement, for this moment, so long awaited, was his wedding in truth.

This night, Elgalad stood in the full power and pride of his ancient heritage; here was a King and those watching knew, had he decided to assert his claim among his people, he would not have been denied.

Waiting for him, blindfolded beside the waiting circle of stones was Vanimórë; his twin scimitars sheathed upon his back, as Elgalad’s long knives were worn in turn. Elgalad paused before him, cast his torch to kindle the wood waiting there, bathing the clearing in light and sensual smoke.

Only by scent, sensed movement and the strength of their bond would Vanimórë claim his mate as their dance unfolded.

Apart from silken loincloths, they wore no other covering; their only adornment their rings from long ago, exchanged anew in the privacy of their rooms. 

A luminous, pearlescent glow lay close upon Elgalad’s skin, growing in intensity as he drew within breath’s distance of his mate. In counterpoint, a shadowy darkness flowed upon Vanimórë, but it was a darkness revealing the spark of stars as he moved, and nothing of the haunted past. His markings breathed along their edges with the remembrance of having been touched by the Silmaril, blending, sparking…seemingly fading, only to appear once more, catching the flames, reflecting them.  
_I was marked from without,_ Vanimórë mused; _Meluion from within…_

Vanimórë’s awareness was drawn upward, where Menelvagor swung ever above him in the night sky. Even veiled from his sight it breathed within him; the three stars of the Warrior’s belt flaming in the cold, waste spaces as both promise and warning.

_Truth… Justice… Choice…_ the Old One had said those stars symbolized, the words as clear as if spoken only yesterday. Had the time spent on the mountain, walking within those visions truly been so long ago? 

Truth, Vanimórë had sometimes bent and twisted to serve necessity, and with Truth he had once broken the heart of the one who faced him now.

Justice, he had dealt with a heavy hand; more times than he cared to recall. 

Choice…Choice had lain in wait for him, deceptive in its promises. Choice had rent him to the bottom of his soul, had demanded all he had to give.

Casting the dark thoughts away, Vanimórë clung instead to the memory of their private bonding in that place outside space and time…the place where he had surrendered without shame and known the rightness of it. Try as he would to ignore Truth, it had reached for him, not at his own will, but by the will of the One he had called upon long before as witness. 

Only the touch of Elgalad upon his body, claiming Vanimórë as his own could truly heal the inner scars, could at last overcome the degradation and filth of Morgoth and Sauron’s sadism. Vanimórë’s formidable, unbending will had not been enough. As surely as if it were a buried infection his body held hidden, it sealed his mind to theirs. Only the Silmaril, Elgalad’s birthright, and the other’s love for him in wielding it had the power to break that ancient curse. 

Into this sacred remembrance came a voice; one familiar and welcome, though the speaker himself was not present.

_Thou dost remember the mountain and what passed there, but thou dost not know the whole of it, for much occurred while thou wert elsewhere. Thou dost recall the marks set upon thee?_

“I do, “ Vanimórë answered silently. “They are token of the Promise.” 

_Thou didst behold the stars of hope that night, yes; but now is revealed what more was written there._

Vision came upon Vanimórë once more, images flooding into his mind as he stood unmoving beside the bonding fire. To those gathered beyond, it seemed he merely gazed with spirit-sight upon the one who was chosen his mate in a time before time; but his soul winged upon the paths of the past.

Before his mind’s eye was a figure curled upon stone, while another chanted from nearby in an unknown language; strange and musical. Above, a shadow, a perfect twin of Isil’s face passed before that light, merged, lingered, before passing onward once more. Time flowed, passing to a room where a figure waited bereft as another called the beloved’s wandering fëa…again, Isil and its shadow entwined. The Promise formed in the eternal heavens; unseen by those below, their only thought for one another.

As the vision faded, the Voice spoke once more.

_What dost thou see?_

Vanimórë’s spirit opened to what he knew would be there…had _always_ been there, even when hidden from his sight by the weight of shadow upon his soul. Always upward, where Light embraced the beautiful darkness. 

_“In the end it is not even in thy hands, is it? And neither is he. Thou art in his. And thus, so is all of Arda.''_ So Fëanor had told him…and what a Truth it had been.

_“We will be forever, I promise thee,”_ his Meluion had said, and Vanimórë had answered him in kind, not expecting forgiveness for such a sin as he believed his words to be. And yet he had _not_ lied, though the grief born of that single utterance had been shattering.

 

But before him stood the fulfillment of those Words, and Vanimórë would honor him. Truth would be served this night; no longer would any have cause to doubt his intent. 

Tonight Vanimórë would fully reclaim all that had been robbed from him, remembering how he had danced for Elgalad, even then. Tonight the past did not matter, only this culmination of it. Tonight no one would stand between. There would be no political agendas, no more lies, no more sacrifice to the greater good.

Long ago, in an anonymous room far away, Vanimórë had danced dreaming of his beloved’s face, as had the one with whom he danced in turn. _A slave claimed nothing, owned nothing_ , but even in the darkest nights of his soul, the brightness of the love shining from soft gray eyes was the lifeline to which he had clung. Vanimórë pushed the memory away in favor of reality. Eyes half lidded, his dream of gold stood before him, the air between them smoldering and crackling with the promise of what the night would bring.

And then his beloved moved, a single swift nick of Elgalad’s knife touching Vanimórë’s lip as the circle of witnesses stilled utterly, the drum resounding with a final strike.

Vanimórë’s tongue sought the bright drops, lingering there, seeking within that taste a more intimate wine; remembered undiminished through a thousand lifetimes. He smiled, dark and feral as he spoke the ritual response. 

_“Blood of my blood…”_ He bent to claim his reward, sharing the taste between them before Elgalad broke away, beginning the dance. The drum embraced them, sensual and light, a shared heartbeat. Vanimórë followed, by sound, by scent, by the mithril-bright tendrils of their strengthening bond. 

They touched, breath mingling, hands seeking, drifting along well-loved planes of flesh. 

_“Upon my lips is thy name spoken in reverence, Vanimórë!_

_“With thee is shared my life’s breath...”_

Circle, bend, the silk of dark hair brushing skin, a promise of another sweet intimacy. 

A quickly drawn gasp as the dancer spun away to return yet again, his scent surrounding his chosen, blanketing, claiming. Another touch of bright blade in the space of a heartbeat’s stillness, calling for answer as a bright bead formed upon the purity of an unblemished breast. The dancer’s lips bent in another smile.

_“Within thy heart is the Light of my being…”_

And again, Elgalad’s vow was answered.

_“In thy Light is my darkness dispelled…”_

Closer, ever closer. Touch became caress. Ever more sensual, feral; claiming and claimed. The silken covering fell away from eyes and bodies.

 

_“My soul doth find its home in thee…”_

_“In thy arms is my solace, my refuge…”_

 

The gentleness of rain lay within Elgalad’s soft gaze, speaking of quiet springs in the depth of forested glades soothing the weariness of the heart. It flowed, shaping itself within the confines of that which held it, surrounding the flame that was Vanimórë at its center, an island. Yet also was there a forging; quenching and renewal, the memory of a music that was the One’s own voice, the power of the sea that had washed away Morgoth’s taint from his beloved’s soul with the same fury as the waves that had swallowed Númenor.

And for a single, fleeting moment, there came such Sight as had lain always on the edge of Vanimórë’s consciousness, an image that had brushed his mind when first he held Elgalad in his arms as a babe in a time lost to ages. As quickly, the impression was gone, but not before revealing what he had seen in a mountaintop vision as he walked between the worlds. 

Through a glass, darkly. But once, for an eternal moment, he had seen face to face. Past and present and what was yet to come met, merged. A dream within a dream, it had been a shield against which the combined evil of Morgoth and Sauron raged in vain; shattered. A shield against the pain of his loss when it threatened to engulf him. He had endured. 

_“Mine desire doth find answer in thine alone. Thou art mine!”_

Silver and light and love and the shadow of wings, a power so far beyond Vanimórë that it made his own, as great and terrible as he existed within this earthbound plane pale to insignificance. A purity that made him want to prostrate himself at his beloved’s feet in supplication, to yearn for a single touch, a touch that would last a lifetime and burn away all the hate and shame and despair he had ever known. Elgalad flowed into Vanimórë’s embrace, their lips meeting, clinging with burning need. A breath later, the drum rose to crescendo and the circle was empty save for quivering blades throwing reflections of the fire into the space where the dancers had been, points driven into the earth.

 

********************

Vanimórë awoke, blanketed by the comfort of silver mist; a mist bringing memory of the night past, moving across the water to return to the arms of a figure whose outline was revealed more by her surroundings than physical presence. The dark, rich earth upon which She stood defined skin; bright, glistening berries the sparkle of Dana’s eyes. Their gazes met; understanding passing between them. His beloved could have no better guardian. 

The sun rose, striking the water as sparks from a forge, and they were gone. Woven around the ache of souls parted and yet never alone was the hammer of the One, for a moment in time tempering the fëa of his dark blade with a kinder, gentler touch.


End file.
